Updates from Frederick Smith, former Detroiter living in Los Angeles, and author of Play It Forward (January 2015), Right Side of the Wrong Bed (December 2007), and Down For Whatever (July 2005).
www.FrederickLSmith.com

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Them

When your historically all-black, working class, neighborhood in Atlanta becomes the hot neighborhood o'the day by white, upwardly mobile folks....

You get what is happening in many neighborhoods across the U.S. Gentrification. Dissonance. Feeling imposed on. A 2007 version of colonialism.

You also get a new novel, Them, by Nathan McCall, a story of ethnicity and gentrification told by a black, working class man named Barlowe, who watches his longtime neighborhood changing. What used to be affordable, but not hot property, soon becomes overpriced and trendy. Gradually changes from mostly black, to solidly white.

In the words of Barlowe's elderly neighbor, "They comin'."

Sounds like a great one to put on the holiday wish list... and the to-be-read list.fs